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Fri, May 25 2012
Air space?
PEACEFUL PACES: A Turkish air force formation flypast at an air show in Plovdiv; a peaceful display in contrast to the flights that are part of continuing tensions between Turkey and Greece over Greek airspace.
It seems one of those stories fated to stay with us for a long time, like the Macedonia name dispute, Croatia and Slovenia’s contretemps over their borders, Serbia and Kosovo…another hardy annual of South Eastern Europe, Turkish incursions into Greek air space.
The dispute has been going on for about three decades, and has seen the two Nato members come close to blows, in 1987 and in 1996. In 2006, a mid-air collision between Greek and Turkish air force jets cost a Greek pilot his life.
Recent weeks in 2009 have seen the problem take wing once more, compounding the complexities of Greek-Turkish relations, already confounded by the Cyprus issue and Greece’s frustrations that Turkey is failing to do its part against illegal immigration.
The air space dispute arises from Greece’s claim of 19km of space, further than the limit of its territorial waters. Turkey refuses to agree to this claim, and so the flights over the Aegean continue.
In one recent incident, Greece said that Turkish fighter flights had put at risk a civilian flight path to a Greek island.
On July 27, Greek foreign minister Dora Bakoyannis raised the issue at a meeting of the European Union’s General Affairs and External Relations Council, making a direct link between Turkey backing down and Ankara’s EU membership aspirations.
She referred to the current rotating presidency of the EU, held by Sweden, having by December to oversee the process of deciding on implementing the Ankara Protocol.
Briefing journalists after the council meeting, Bakoyannis said that Turkey’s accession negotiations were "based on principles and a clear negotiating framework that clearly provide for an obligation to respect good neighbourly relations and peaceful resolution of differences".
Over the past few weeks, Bakoyannis said, Turkey had been following a "policy of provocation" with successive overflights by Turkish military aircraft over Greek territory and an attempt to establish claims to parts of Greece’s continental shelf. "This policy is unacceptable," she said.
If Turkey wishes to become an EU member state – as it says it did – then it should honour its signature, Bakoyannis said.
Greece was the "most sincere supporter of Turkey’s accession" but would make no concessions on its position that Turkey needed to show respect for international law, good neighbourly relations and EU principles and values.
Asked how her EU colleagues had responded to her statements, Bakoyannis said that there had been no discussion, but her counterparts had wanted to have a picture so that they could follow developments from now on.
In an interview with Greek newspaper Eleftherotypia, Bakoyannis was more outspoken, saying that Ankara was obliged to respect EU regulations and standards and remarking that "Europe is no place for bullies," Greek news agency ANA MPA said.
The issue is a hot one within Greek domestic politics and for the local media.
Eleftherotypia reported George Papandreou, leader of opposition party Pasok, as seeing a Turkish "heatwave" in the Aegean, worried by the increasing, daily violations of Greek national airspace by Turkish jet fighters. At the same time, Papandreou said that the Greek government should not try to exploit the air space dispute for domestic political gain.
Newspaper Eleftheros said that all parties in Greece had a tough policy line on Turkey. "The government is not alone, provided it makes use of the inter-party front".
While Athens seeks to cast Ankara as the villain of the piece, the country from which the flights originate has cast its responses in elaborate diplomatic language.
Leading Greek daily Kathimerini reported on July 16 that responding to Athens’s official complaint at the time about the continuing spate of Greek air space violations by Turkish jets, a spokesperson for the Turkish foreign ministry, Burak Ozugergin, indicated that Ankara was ready to co-operate with Greece in finding a solution to disputes.
"There are many problems in the Aegean which can be solved only if they are considered comprehensively," Ozugergin said, noting that each side must view the other as "a future partner."
He said that problems which cannot be solved bilaterally should "go to third parties."
The foreign ministry in Ankara saw the Aegean as "a sea that unites Turkey and Greece, not as a source of confrontation".
A spokesperson for the foreign ministry in Athens responded at the time, in turn, that "tactics cannot change the status quo in the Aegean" and said Greece would be only too happy to take the dispute over the continental shelf to the International Court of Justice at The Hague.
A lingering question amid the dispute is whether Bakoyannis will take up an invitation to visit Turkey.
On July 18 2009, Bakoyannis said that she still intended to visit Ankara in response to an invitation from her Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu, but a heavy workload was preventing her from going this summer, Kathimerini said.
Concerns in Athens have been further exacerbated by Ankara’s decision to authorise its oil corporation to prospect for oil beyond Turkish territorial waters, the newspaper said.
Turkish media have responded with various articles, including a satirical piece in Today’s Zaman headlined "Greek cow violates Turkish border" which ended with a hint that the Greek cow would end up being eaten.
On July 27, writing in Hurriyet, commentator Ariana Ferentinou hinted that Greece’s position may be driven in part by the unpopularity of prime minister Costas Karamanlis’s government.
"One of the most TV-visible LAOS deputies Mr. Kyriakos Velopoulos even suggested an interesting solution to the Greek-Turkish problems. ‘Shooting down a Turkish F-16 over our Aegean perhaps would have stopped Turkey,’ he said during an interview published yesterday in the Greek weekly newspaper RealNews," Ferentinou’s article said.
"One might think that a ‘Greek-Turkish war’ scenario coming from an ultra right nationalist party is not surprising bearing in mind that this party is attacking a conservative government for not showing enough ‘patriotism’," she said.
In a regional context, the policies and the attitude of Ankara may influence political developments in Greece depending on how much Athens believes that it can use the Turkey card in order to recover its low credibility at home, Ferentinou said.
The dispute has been going on for about three decades, and has seen the two Nato members come close to blows, in 1987 and in 1996. In 2006, a mid-air collision between Greek and Turkish air force jets cost a Greek pilot his life.
Recent weeks in 2009 have seen the problem take wing once more, compounding the complexities of Greek-Turkish relations, already confounded by the Cyprus issue and Greece’s frustrations that Turkey is failing to do its part against illegal immigration.
The air space dispute arises from Greece’s claim of 19km of space, further than the limit of its territorial waters. Turkey refuses to agree to this claim, and so the flights over the Aegean continue.
In one recent incident, Greece said that Turkish fighter flights had put at risk a civilian flight path to a Greek island.
On July 27, Greek foreign minister Dora Bakoyannis raised the issue at a meeting of the European Union’s General Affairs and External Relations Council, making a direct link between Turkey backing down and Ankara’s EU membership aspirations.
She referred to the current rotating presidency of the EU, held by Sweden, having by December to oversee the process of deciding on implementing the Ankara Protocol.
Briefing journalists after the council meeting, Bakoyannis said that Turkey’s accession negotiations were "based on principles and a clear negotiating framework that clearly provide for an obligation to respect good neighbourly relations and peaceful resolution of differences".
Over the past few weeks, Bakoyannis said, Turkey had been following a "policy of provocation" with successive overflights by Turkish military aircraft over Greek territory and an attempt to establish claims to parts of Greece’s continental shelf. "This policy is unacceptable," she said.
If Turkey wishes to become an EU member state – as it says it did – then it should honour its signature, Bakoyannis said.
Greece was the "most sincere supporter of Turkey’s accession" but would make no concessions on its position that Turkey needed to show respect for international law, good neighbourly relations and EU principles and values.
Asked how her EU colleagues had responded to her statements, Bakoyannis said that there had been no discussion, but her counterparts had wanted to have a picture so that they could follow developments from now on.
In an interview with Greek newspaper Eleftherotypia, Bakoyannis was more outspoken, saying that Ankara was obliged to respect EU regulations and standards and remarking that "Europe is no place for bullies," Greek news agency ANA MPA said.
The issue is a hot one within Greek domestic politics and for the local media.
Eleftherotypia reported George Papandreou, leader of opposition party Pasok, as seeing a Turkish "heatwave" in the Aegean, worried by the increasing, daily violations of Greek national airspace by Turkish jet fighters. At the same time, Papandreou said that the Greek government should not try to exploit the air space dispute for domestic political gain.
Newspaper Eleftheros said that all parties in Greece had a tough policy line on Turkey. "The government is not alone, provided it makes use of the inter-party front".
While Athens seeks to cast Ankara as the villain of the piece, the country from which the flights originate has cast its responses in elaborate diplomatic language.
Leading Greek daily Kathimerini reported on July 16 that responding to Athens’s official complaint at the time about the continuing spate of Greek air space violations by Turkish jets, a spokesperson for the Turkish foreign ministry, Burak Ozugergin, indicated that Ankara was ready to co-operate with Greece in finding a solution to disputes.
"There are many problems in the Aegean which can be solved only if they are considered comprehensively," Ozugergin said, noting that each side must view the other as "a future partner."
He said that problems which cannot be solved bilaterally should "go to third parties."
The foreign ministry in Ankara saw the Aegean as "a sea that unites Turkey and Greece, not as a source of confrontation".
A spokesperson for the foreign ministry in Athens responded at the time, in turn, that "tactics cannot change the status quo in the Aegean" and said Greece would be only too happy to take the dispute over the continental shelf to the International Court of Justice at The Hague.
A lingering question amid the dispute is whether Bakoyannis will take up an invitation to visit Turkey.
On July 18 2009, Bakoyannis said that she still intended to visit Ankara in response to an invitation from her Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu, but a heavy workload was preventing her from going this summer, Kathimerini said.
Concerns in Athens have been further exacerbated by Ankara’s decision to authorise its oil corporation to prospect for oil beyond Turkish territorial waters, the newspaper said.
Turkish media have responded with various articles, including a satirical piece in Today’s Zaman headlined "Greek cow violates Turkish border" which ended with a hint that the Greek cow would end up being eaten.
On July 27, writing in Hurriyet, commentator Ariana Ferentinou hinted that Greece’s position may be driven in part by the unpopularity of prime minister Costas Karamanlis’s government.
"One of the most TV-visible LAOS deputies Mr. Kyriakos Velopoulos even suggested an interesting solution to the Greek-Turkish problems. ‘Shooting down a Turkish F-16 over our Aegean perhaps would have stopped Turkey,’ he said during an interview published yesterday in the Greek weekly newspaper RealNews," Ferentinou’s article said.
"One might think that a ‘Greek-Turkish war’ scenario coming from an ultra right nationalist party is not surprising bearing in mind that this party is attacking a conservative government for not showing enough ‘patriotism’," she said.
In a regional context, the policies and the attitude of Ankara may influence political developments in Greece depending on how much Athens believes that it can use the Turkey card in order to recover its low credibility at home, Ferentinou said.
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Eight Turkish fighter jets venture into Greek airspace
Reportedly, the planes flew above a Greek military firing range on the island during a Greek air force exercise
Next six months ‘critical’ for Greek foreign policy
Greek foreign minister Dora Bakoyannis says that all the major issues in Greek foreign policy – the Macedonia name dispute, Cyprus and relations with Turkey – will reach major turning points in the next six months.
Israel responds to Greek criticism on airspace dispute with Turkey
Embassy in Athens says that reference to military exercise being held in Turkish territory was an error that has been corrected. Earlier, Greek media were irked by Israel allegedly taking Ankara’s side in the airspace dispute.
John McCain expresses hopes for Greece – Turkey relations
US senator McCain says that he believes relations between Athens and Ankara will improve in spite of the airspace dispute – comments that coincided with Greek media allegations that Israel is taking Turkey’s side in the dispute.
Turkish fighters violate Greek airspace again – report
August 19 2009 incursion into airspace claimed by Athens is the latest in a long series of incidents amid renewed tensions; about 363 violations and 58 ‘clashes’ between Greek and Turkish military aircraft were registered in June and July in the Aegean Sea.
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Many thanks, Aries, for the explanation in English. The distinction between 'philotimo' and 'philotimia" is a fine one, between two different levels of abstract nouns: a bit like the distinction between "British status" and "Britishness": one conveys a (correct) value judgement that the other does not.
As for "philotimithykes", that is an addition to my vocabulary and not in my limited dictionary, though the latter has got the adjective "philotimos" and the verb "philotimoumai", which presumably is one of those awkward semi-passive verbs that conjugates like "erchomai" (to come), so that "he comes" is 'erchetai' and [...]
Read the full comment not "erchei".
Brings back all my rusty grammatical knowledge of ancient Greek - thanks ! Interesting...
ΤΟ ΦΙΛΟΤΙΜΟ = noun
filotimo.
Η ΦΙΛΟΤΙΜΙΑ = the state of having
filotimo
ΦΙΛΟΤΙΜΙΘΗΚΕΣ the action of accomplishing acts requirring filotimo
Glad to hear the two departements
abolishing bull fighting
Les abatoires ne sont pas des places de recreations
Enjoy your stay in Spain.
Many thanks. It with considerable and genuine trepidation that I presume to comment upon a native-speaker's use of his own language - but according to my Collins Dictionary of Modern Greek (as recommended by the British Council in Athens) , there are two alternative words in use. One is: H Philotimia, and the other is: To Philotimo (sorry I can't do Greek characters on my computer, but it's spelled phi-iota-lambda-omikron-tau-iota-mu-omicron.)
(Presumably the 'to' is neuter gender and the 'H' (or eta) is feminine gender, if I recall my ancient Greek correctly.)
The [...]
Read the full comment 'philotimo' version has got a beta-lambda abbreviation in front of it which (I'm guessing) may mean "colloquial". (It may of course also mean "foreigners are going to get this word wrong" !)
Turning to Spain, of its seventeen autonomous regions, the northern ones do not practice bullfighting: Cantabria is one, and Asturias is another, to my certain knowledge.
You can't miss the bull-ring in any southern Spanish city - it's the largest building in town except the cathedral, and is always round (for obvious reasons), also near the town meat market and abbatoir. (The Spanish food chain is highly integrated !)
We thought we had at last found one in Torrelavega, Cantabria - right size, right shape, and usefully next to the cattle market and abattoir. (It turned out, however, that it was Spain's largest long-distance bus station, and a very efficient one too ! )
Like you, I prefer a holiday without uncivilised and barbaric blood sports, so we tend to go to Cantabria, not least as my step-son lives and works there !
Scorpio
If you cannot debate properly
but in terms of Hysterics
Get lost!! simple as that pal
Cheers.
Ps That applies also at whoever should the need arise.
Epaminondas
I have already written about philotimo" the literrate Etymological rendering is "philo"
and "timi"
Philo = Friend of,quest of
timi = Honour
In periphrasis
Self Esteem = the Result of Quest for Honour.
In French = Amour Propre
In Bulgarian = Приятелско.
Let the late David rest in peace
wiil you? it has nothing to do with "the Kanoun Of Lek"
if not pushed to the limits.
Now about Caudillo a lot may be said [...]
Read the full comment and even more can be thought after one thing for sure is that
he made Spain what it is nowadays.
ps.
In my opoinion why didn't he abolish the bull fighting sport
The remaims of Gladiator barbarism
in Rome.'Of food and spectacles' to "the pleb".
Scorpio - as has been commented elsewhere, you sound like "philotimo enrage", to mix languages.
The late David Holden commented that many Greeks never like foreigners to use the "phi" word (i.e. philotimo), as it is closer to Albanian blood feud law (the Kanun of Lek) than it is to Classical Greek values. Not for the first time, I think the late David was right.
Also, look at Medea, Act II, scene 2, where Euripedes seems rather neatly to have forecasted the same phenomenon (lovely Greek word, that.)
David/Dr Cornelius stop pretending to be Epaminondas. You are the most ridiculous old fool on this site playing both sides for a couple of years now. do get a life
and all readers the best way to get on David's nerves is to simply ignore him and do not respond
Actually, I was being unfair to Franco's Spain. Spain in 1939 was just recovering from its own civil war (which is still a sensitive subject in some quarters even now. If you are a foreigner there, do not raise this subject in social conversation !) Franco actively did not want a Nazi German presence on his territory, despite earlier Nazi help to his Condor Legion, and ensured that Spain remained truly neutral during World War Two.
That said, "El Caudillo" Franco was no democrat, and certainly by the early 1970s (and I can speak from personal [...]
Read the full comment experience here) Spain had become a one-Party Fascist state in all but name, with a repression of civil liberties that made Communist Poland look distinctly tolerant by comparison. Everybody lived in fear of the "Guardia Civil" police, whereas in Poland nobody feared their "Milicja Obywatelska" equivalents.
Epaminondas
I quite understand the meaaning of your second paragraph.
"mois aussi je suis Napoleon mais
qui va le croire? Je suppose personne mon vieux meme pas moi en fin de conte apres un certain temps"
As for the first one most the named were either were "NEUTRAL"
and other were playing the Tune both sides.
Aries - as regards 1945, you're forgetting Switzerland, Sweden, Portugal, Spain (well, maybe not, under Franco), Ireland, and of course Turkey.
Anyway, the good ole' US of A regards itself as the "cradle of democracy anyway", so 'tough tit' to Greece, Switzerland, France, and other contenders !
Epaminondas
Yes back in 1950 they were not shining at all.that's for sure
neither was the USA "with its
anti-communist hysterics one could argue" nor was anybody composed enough and poised under the circumstances left over by WWII.
Sorry - slight misquote. Delete <<cradles>> and replace by <<shining examples>>.
Aries - perhaps the better quote is that of President Truman in 1950, who commented that "neither Greece nor Turkey are exactly cradles of democracy or human rights, but we'd better have them in NATO nonetheless."
epami
Addendum to the previous post
First witch: When shall we three meet again
..................................................
..................................................
First witch: Where the place?
Second witch: Upon the heath.
Third witch: There to meet with Macbeth.
First witch: I come, Greymalkin!
Second witch: Paddock calls.
Third witch: Anon!
All: Fair is foul, and foul is fair:
Hover through the fog and filthy air.
(Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 1)
Stefov brillant exposittion [...]
Read the full comment "of The late
Holden"s "Greece without Columns"
in the American Chronicle.
Epami
My dear friend we have gone througjh the subject of the late Holden and his death a long time ago. The late Holden pocked his nose in the Saudis And left "the House of Saudis'an unfinished Symphony.
Aries - David Holden in "Greece Without Columns" recounts the story of Greece's previous relationship with NATO rather differently, but then we all know what happened to David Holden for daring to publish the truth !
EPAMINONDAS
First of all to start with
Greece's accession to Nato did occur under Field Marshall Alexander Papagos the first premiership of the Late Karamaanlis was in 1955. The Internal problems where in 1961-62 a prolonged aderversality with the then Royal Court of Greece (AMBATEIELOU INCIDENT)
in London and "aneNdotos" of
George Papandreou Father of Andreas
and grand father of the now oppositions party leader George
Papandreou.
Cheers man
Aries - surely you know better than this. What is the difference between "internal problems" and "internal matters", except purely within the speaker's own perspective ? Otherwise they refer very much to the same thing.
Epaminondas
Aries is not glossing anything and you know it very well.
Karamanlis did not any internal problems at that time regarding Greece's accesion to NATO but purely internal maters. Karamanlis withdrew the Greek Military from Nato because of the CIA led Coup against Makarios and the idiocy of Ioanides of biting the bait.
Go on patting the head of Turkey
Brits, you always adopt the USA
policy that demands it.
ANIMUS IN CONSUELDNO LIBER they say
.... my foot as my English old Head Master [...]
Read the full comment DR Dale ,God have his soul, used to say.
Cheers.
Aries is glossing over a few facts about Greece's continued NATO membership since 1952: the elder Karamanlis had big electoral problems internally about it in the late 1950s, and during the Colonels regime from 1967 onwards Greece became a member of NATO in name only. In other words, it played no part at all in either NATO's military or civil protection roles for some 13 years. (Cyprus was a separate divisive factor for much of the earlier period too.)
In contrast, Turkey remained a full and active NATO member throughout the period, and in the eyes [...]
Read the full comment of many NATO member-nations, has a much more consistent track-record than has Greece.
Hence NATO may be rather more tolerant of Turkey's infringements of Greek air space than otherwise it might be. Sorry, but that's reality.
Aries.
the Berlin treaty was much nastier situation, because Disraiei had just made a deal with the Turks to get Cyprus in exchange for reversing the San Stefano treaty,
As luck should have it, Gorchakov (I think) the Russian envoy, who was very old and senile, spilled out of his attaché, by accident, the map of the final borders Russa was ready to agree to, before going to war.
Distraeli saw that and stuck to his guns, knowing very well how far Russia would go.
Just bad luck.
[...]
Read the full comment
valeri
After pretending to be a prospect
Ukranian babe lover turns to a good
political debater with a good grasp of the Balkan theater.
Epami
Your obsession with LBJ
made you forgot that both the buggers
Greece and Turkey were nominated
members in the first enlargement of Nato in 1952 long before LBJ was in office as v.p of JFK
Valeri
That yellow card was played once again before by Disraeli in the reconsideration of St.Stefano treaty and the resulting Berlin Treaty
ceteris paribus.
Well, Valeri, the best LBJ quote that I recall is: "It's better to have those buggers inside your tent pissing out, than outside your tent pissing in".
Which presumably was yet another reason why Greece was admitted into both NATO and the EU before it was politically ready to do so....(and in some respects still is !)
Brings back a famous Linden Johnson quote (a remark to his CIA operatives) about the conflict between Georgios Papandreou and Andreas Papandreou:
"Just tell Papa-what's his name, to work things out with Papa-what's his name!"
I love that one...
Again Epami..
the Greeks tried again their luck at Socialism as late as the 70's, as you pointed out.
Bottom line is that Greece is "European" now only due to the CIA and the American unwillingness to see the USSR gain a foothold on the Aegean.
Basically their Democracy and "membership in the international institutions" of which they are so proud of, and rub their neighbor's noses in these days, was imposed on them with a lot of deadly force.
So much for that.
I had [...]
Read the full comment a few Greek friends growing up, who's parents had "defected" to BG if you can imagine, and I can't tell you how many times I've argued with them that they were lucky that the CIA cared enough to force them to be Western.
No natural westerners those Greeks;)
Valeri - sorry, you are quite right; it WAS a pre-Yalta bilateral carve-up in Moscow by Stalin and Churchill (presumably Roosevelt woudn't have been too pleased if he'd known about it !)
The Greek Civil War (from 1946 to 1949) killed about 10% of their population, deported many more (not always northwards !), and was generally - as you say - oriented towards Communism, though local Balkan factionalism in Greek Macedonia (then called Northern Greece) may have played an equally great part. As far as I know, it did not spread over the borders into Bulgaria [...]
Read the full comment or Jugoslav Macedonia, while the Albanian border was already fortified and closed. But not exactly the best episode to support Greece's claim to be the "cradle of civilisation in Europe", though events during the Colonels' regime in the 1970s came pretty close.
Epami...
it was even more casual that that.
It happen a year before Yalta at a private meeting between Churchill and Stalin in Stalin's office in Moscow.
It was literally on a piece of paper that they wrote the % of every country they were to have influence over, after the eventual defeat of the Germans.
The paper went back and forth as they haggled, the same way you'd negotiate a business deal.
Even Churchill was embarrassed afterwards and asked Stalin to destroy the paper.
Stalin of course [...]
Read the full comment didn't keep his side of the deal, neither did Churchill actually, because in the end boots on the ground mattered most.
We weren't supposed to be 100% under the Russians and the Greeks weren't supposed to be 100% under the Allies.
But what I find most pathetic is that - yes, we were occupied end of story!
The Greeks on the other hand, felt left out of the glorious Socialist future, and ended up killing more of each other in the resulting civil war, than the Germans ever managed to kill while there!
So much for our great "western" neighbor to the South;)
I still say that building silly statues in Skopje is one thing, and illicit overflying in the Aegean with jet fighters is quite another ! It's what the European Court of Justice terms "proportionality".
It is also more than a bit exaggerated for David to call Macedonia a "terrorist state". Where is his evidence ? Where are the cluster-bombs and suicide-bombers ? What is the death toll along the Greek / Macedonian border ? At a time when ETA is still proving that European terrorism is unfortunately alive and well in Spain, this is a particularly [...]
Read the full comment silly accusation for David to make.
What Valeriu says, in contrast, is quite right. A "bit of yellow paper" back at Yalta made a lot of difference.
Greece and Bulgaria are members of the same international bodies.
Turkey is Muslim so her chances in the EU are not very good, FYROM is a miserable little Yugoslav residue that eventually will be incorporated.
Bulgaria and Greece have that one thing in common - neither of us earned or deserved EU membership based on internal development or economic advancement.
In both case it was purely political considerations, that got us in those clubs - with Greece it was the Cold War, with us, it probably had to do with the Yugoslav wars and [...]
Read the full comment the fact that we had smart politicians to see the opportunities (unlike the Serbs).
Greece happen to be ahead of her neighbors in those "international bodies" only due to that yellow piece of paper that Churchill and Stalin scribbled on in their Moscow meeting in 1943 and drew their separate sphere of influence where they did.
Mind you at the time the Greeks were super unhappy about it, and fought a nasty little civil war, in their desire to join us in the Commie camp, all the way up to 1948, I believe..
Your article fails to inform your readers that Greece is defending itself against (Turkey and FYROM) these terrorist states who do not respect borders or International law..Greece is not makig any claims against these neighbours..
That is why Greece is a member of all international bodies and its neighbours are not...
If Greece is going to wield its "veto" card again (this time against Turkey in an EU context), this tactic will begin to lack credibility amongst other EU member-states. First Macedonia, now Turkey, who will be the next recipient of Greece's "toys out of pram" tantrums ?
Ironically, Greece has got a better case against Turkey than it ever had against Macedonia. Flying military aircraft into your airspace is a rather more well-founded international grievance than is building statues or naming airports !
Hey, now that we are in the EU, who should we bully with eventual veto?
Makedonians seem easy, but the Greeks beat us to it, the Serbs deserve it, but after all those American bombings, one has to sympathize with them, the Romanians are in the EU themselves, the Albanians can always retaliate by coming to BG and having babies -( the nightmare), .... who do we mess with, that is the question?
I say we pick a big country to test our EU power!
Ukraine!
They did stop the Russian gas [...]
Read the full comment and kept us in the cold (killed off a bunch of pensioners, so that was good, but...) and after most of our hotties married westerners already, I say sand us some of those hot blond babes you've got there, or we will block your membership in the EU!!!
Hear that Ukraine!!!;))